VECTOR: Super Hero

My plan was to make a whole series of generic super heros and villians in various poses. This was a test to see how well the image would perform. This was the second rejection...the first had to do with illustrator CS6 rasterizing gradient mesh when saving to EPS10...so I killed the gradients. So I was surprised that on the resubmit I got this...wouldn't this trump the first issue? Anyway, I am open to crtique .

"We're sorry, but we found the overall composition of this file lacking visual impact and therefore not suitable as stock. With the rapid growth of the iStock collection, we give valuable consideration to each file but unfortunately cannot accept all submissions. Please don't take it personally. This isn't necessarily a reflection of your skill, rather a decision by iStock to determine commercial applications for your illustration as royalty-free stock.

For a list of files we do and don't need, please see:
http://www.istockphoto.com/illustrator_7.0_neededfiles.php "

If you'd like a critique, please post a link to the full size jpeg. We can't tell much from a thumbnail image. That said, even though I'm not an illustrator, there are weird inconsistencies in the outline thicknesses. But if you post a big enough file to view, I'm sure you can get some help.

It would be helpful to see this about twice as big. I can just barely make out some small detail flaws here and there that the Inspector would have been able to see much more clearly. If you want effective feedback, we need a view closer to what the Inspector would have seen.

From what I can see at this size:

The outlines don't really have that flowing look of a weighted stroke, which would normally change in thickness as it moves around an object. But look at his left foot (on the right side as we view) - the entire outline is, for all intents and purposes, one single weight, and looks dramatically different than the stroke on his right foot. The entire half of the cape on the right side of the image is virtually all at one consistent weight but then undergoes changes across the left side of the image. The left and right arm cuffs also have, at a glance, the appearance of each being a single weight all the way around, but that don't match each other. Where the cape is around his neck, that stroke also has the appearance of being a single weight all the way around while the face right next to it has a much more developed appearance.

That's just looking at the strokes.

Anatomically, there are all kinds of issues. Even though this is a cartoonish character, you've established a certain level of "realism" with the detailed face but then the hands and feet just completely fall apart. His left leg and foot in particular. The knees appear too high, making his lower legs appear disproportionately long when, if anything, with this sort of distorted wide-angle lens style, there should be more foreshortening of the lower legs and feet. His hands and his legs are very asymmetrical...even a cartoon character needs to have his hands and feet look the same or else it just looks wrong. Same thing with the eyes, one is much smaller than the other, more than any foreshortening would justify. I don't quite get his nose, and why there's a stroke that curls over it halfway up.

There are several places where there are little drawing flaws, where things don't quite line up (such as his right armpit, where his right leg goes into the boot, and a random bit of the light blue within the dark outline at his crotch. Possibly other details if we could see this larger...

Thanks, I do see what you mean on the lower legs being too long. It is cartoony so I purposly have a larger upper body with larger hands. I get what you mean on the details of the hands and lower portion. I'm still having trouble with details and vector as my original drawing that this stemmed from is highly detailed...I need to find a better balance without it eating up too much time. Actually the leg on the right seems very odd now without the defining details...almost animal-like. Thanks for the feedback donald.